International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 9, Issue 8, August-2018 809

ISSN 2229-5518

An Automated Scheduling System for University

Lectures and Examinations
Iwara ARIKPO1, Abigail OKOKON2

Abstract— Scheduling has been a real-life combinatorial problem over the years. University timetabling, which is part of time scheduling,
represents a difficult optimization problem, which most universities are grappling with; hence, developing software systems that automate
timetabling has also been a challenging task. The aim of this study was to develop an automated system that can simplify the lecture and
examination timetabling in the University. The system was designed with an object-oriented analysis and design approach using the unified
modelling language. The resulting web application was implemented using the Java Enterprise Edition version 6, with MySQL Server as
the backend database system. The resultant software schedules lectures and examinations interactively and in batches for the eleven
departments of the Faculty of Science at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. Lectures are scheduled randomly in timeslots, satisfying the
constraints provided in the system. The output of the resulting timetable is by far better than the manual approach, eliminating venue and
time clashes in the process.

Index Terms— scheduling, automated, timetabling, lecture, examination, algorithm, software

——————————  ——————————
1 INTRODUCTION 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

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CHEDULING is a real-life combinatorial problem that is
concerned with programming a certain number of events
within a specific timeframe. [1], report that, the general
area of scheduling has been the subject of intense research for
several years now. Researchers have studied literally
thousands of scheduling problems. Generally, scheduling
problems involve tasks that must schedule on machines,
subject to certain constraints to optimize some objective
function [2]. [3], defined scheduling as “establishing the
timing for performing a task”. Scheduling problems arise in
many areas of human endeavour, such as transportation,
workforce (e.g. Nurse scheduling), education, sports, and so
on. Scheduling and timetabling are synonymous; however, the
two can be viewed as two separate activities, with the term
scheduling used as a generic term to cover specific types of
problems in this domain. Timetabling can therefore, be
considered as a special case of generic scheduling [1]. In
Universities, scheduling problems often, arise in the course of
generating lecture and examination timetables, and are
referred to as timetabling. The term timetabling describes the
allocation, subject to constraints, of given resources to objects
being placed in space-time, in such a way as to satisfy or
nearly satisfy a desirable set of possible objectives [4]. Solving
a university timetabling problem manually often requires a lot
of time and resources in terms of manhours and losses due to
clashes and cancellations. The focus of this study is the
development of an automated timetabling system for
scheduling lectures and examinations.
Many researchers have shown great interest in the area of
scheduling and timetabling. A wide variety of studies, from
the field of operations research and artificial intelligence,
have addressed the spectrum of university timetabling
problems [5].
Evolutionary techniques have been applied to solve the
timetable scheduling problem. Methodologies like Genetic
Algorithms (GAs) and Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have
been used with mixed success. Researchers have employed
many different approaches over the years in an attempt to
generate ‘optimal’ timetabling solutions subject to a list of
constraints.
[6], have developed a mathematical programming model for
faculty lecture assignments, where each variable represented a
full teacher schedule, with the problem formulated as a set of
partitioning problems with side constraints. [7] conducted a
research in Germany on the school timetabling problem. This
study, it will be noted, described software implementations
and the underlying approaches utilized by the German
institutions, most of which were based on direct heuristics. [8]
stated the various timetabling problems in a formal way and
provided different formulations for them. [9] surveyed the
approaches to the examination timetabling problem with a
focus on approaches that are based on the reduction to graph
colouring problems. [10] surveyed the application of genetic
algorithms to timetabling. [11] addressed what the study
termed “Quantitative Modelling and Technology Driven
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Departmental Lecture Scheduling”. [12] studied “Decision

Support Systems for University Lecture Scheduling”. His
work was centred on the development of a tool to provide
human-assisted timetabling. [13] presented a decision support
system using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). [14] applied
genetic algorithms (GA) and sequential local search to
generate a lecture timetable. This study selected GA as a well-
suited tool for university course timetabling problem because
it is used to search large nonlinear solution spaces, where
there is a lack of expert knowledge, or the encoding is
difficult. [15] applied Modified GA and Cooperative GA to
solve the university timetable scheduling problem. Many
researchers have proposed different approaches such as,
simulated annealing ([16]; [17]), tabu search [18] and
evolutionary algorithms [19]; each solving a particular
timetabling problem.
Figure 2: Activity diagram for the automated

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timetabling system
3 MATERIALS AND METHODS
3.1 System design
The system design approach for this lectures and Scheduler Resource

-resource: Object -venue: Venue

examinations time scheduling is based on the object-oriented -course: Object
-schedule: Map
-time: String
-day: String

analysis and design (OOAD) methodology, using the unified

-mapCourseResource() -getResource()
-getSchedule()

modelling language (UML). The system design components DBHelper

-table_name: String
are presented in Figures 1 – 3. Course
-addTable(String)
-memberName Venue
-memberName
-memberName -memberName -venue_title: String
-course_title: String -addColumn(String: String) -venue_id: String
-course_id: String -getColumn() -status: String
-credit_unit: int -getTableSize() -getAttribute(String)
-level: int
-status: String
Schedule Lecture / Exam -getAttribute(String)

Register Department
Register Course

Department Faculty
Register Departmental Venue Register Faculty Venue
-department_title: String -faculty_title: String
-department_id: String -faculty_id: String
Dept -getAttribute(String) -getAttribute(String)
Admin Login
Figure 3: Class diagram for the automated timetabling
Reset Username Faculty system
Admin

View Timetable

The processing logic of the system, programmed as Servlets,

was implemented using the Java Web Technology running the
Student/
Lecturer Java Enterprise Edition version 6 (JEE6); while the user
Figure 1: Use case diagram for the automated timetabling interface and presentation logic was developed with Java
system Server Pages (JSP) and HTML. At the backend, the sever side
was deployed with Apache Tomcat, while the database system
was implemented on MySQL Server.
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4. RESULTS

The automated time scheduling system for University, handles

the creation of timetables, which undertakes the scheduling of
time for lectures and examinations, as well as the venues of
these activities for the entire Faculty, including joint lectures
involving multiple departments. As should be anticipated, the
system validates users, granting higher privileges to the
system administrators. Besides, the system provides database
management mechanisms to facilitate persistent data storage
as regards courses, examinations, lecture venues, departments,
Figure 6: Partial lecture timetable
and so on.

Lectures are scheduled randomly in timeslots, satisfying the

constraints provided in the system. The output of the
timetable when compared with the manual equivalent is
better; resolving venue and lecture time clashes whilst
adhering to the constraints defined in the systems model.

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Figures 4 – 7 are screenshots from the automated timetable
scheduling application.

Figure 4: Session login for users Figure 7: Code Listing for a segment of the Session
Management Servlet

5. CONCLUSION

The tasks of lecture and examination scheduling are a critical

component of any University Administration. The automation
of the timetabling problem has consequently attracted the
attention of several researchers. This study, in contribution to
efforts by other researchers, has developed a timetabling
system for lectures and examinations, which was tested within
the Faculty of Science, at the University of Calabar, Nigeria.
The authors believe that, with minor modifications, the
Figure 5: Administrator Panel
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 9, Issue 8, August-2018
ISSN 2229-5518
software can be a useful tool for generating timetables for
other faculties in Universities.
6. FUTURE RESEARCH
While this study has addressed the problem of time
scheduling for intra faculty lectures and examinations in a
University, it is the view of the authors that, this has only
provided opportunities for future research. For instance, the
application developed in this study, has not addressed time
clashes for “carryover” students (those who offer lower level
failed courses while in higher levels). Another potential
avenue for further research is the scheduling for multi-faculty
venues, (i.e., those shared by multiple faculties). Addressing
these issues in a future research will enhance the efficiency of
this application and those developed by other researchers.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank all the Staff of the Faculty of Sci-
ence, and the Central Timetable Officers at the University of
Calabar, Nigeria, who provided the expert information during
the development of the timetabling application.
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[18] Bello, G. S., Rangel, M. C. & Boeres, M. C. (2008). 7th Iwara ARIKPO1: Department of Computer Science, University
International Conference on the Practice and Theory of of Calabar, Nigeria. Email: iwara.arikpo@unical.edu.ng;
Automated Timetabling: An Approach for the Class Teacher iiarikpo@gmail.com
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AUTHOR DETAILS:
Corresponding Author:

Abigail OKOKON2: Department of Computer Science,

University of Calabar, Nigeria.

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